Power, desire and emotions in education: revisiting the epistolary narratives of three women in apartheid South Africa
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper I will attempt to consider emotions in the context of three women’s lives, whose passion for education brought them together and then tore them apart along axes of difference defined by race, class and age in apartheid South Africa. I am looking in particular into the correspondence between Lily Moya, Mabel Palmer, and Sibusisiwe Makhanya, published in 1987 Marks, S. 1987. Not either an experimental doll: the separate worlds of three South African women, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press. [Google Scholar] by Shula Marks and having since become an almost canonical reading in the ‘intersectionality’ literature. In revisiting this correspondence, I am exploring how culturally differentiated emotions, as inscribed in the three women’s epistolary narratives, can open up spaces for the subject of feminism to emerge. In this context, what I suggest is that reclaiming emotions within current educational discourses and practices can have significant effects not only on how lives are shaped and subjectivities formed, but also on how we can rethink about what feminism is and what it can do.
Source: Gender and Education
Author: Maria Tamboukou
Institution: University of East London
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1967940354